LIFE WITH MY CHILDREN PART 45

The first of January we moved into our new apartment in Bremen...and we all loved it! It was unfurnished, but between Uncle Calvin and my brother, Jimmy and auction sales, within a week I had three beds, a stove and refrigerator, table and four mismatched chairs and two chests of drawers. We were all set!

The apartment was on the ground floor with a big living room, two big bedrooms and a good-sized kitchen and bathroom. The only downside of it was the kitchen. Though big, it was down a hall from the living room, past my bedroom and the bathroom. It just felt separated from the rest of the apartment, but I soon grew used to it.

I loved Bremen and thought, even before I moved there, it would be the perfect town to raise kids. It was small. I think the population when we moved there was less than 2,000 including the surrounding township. Best of all, it was just 20 miles from South Bend and K-Mart!

We lived just a block from Bremen Cafe, a local bar with music and dancing on weekends. On Saturday nights after time for the kids to go to bed, I'd walk over there to meet friends from work, have a beer, listen to the music and dance. I did not want to date anybody, but I loved to go out with a crowd of friends and dance all night. At work I had made a best friend, Evelyn, and she and I spent a lot of time together with our kids. Sundays were most often spent at my brothers or my uncles...at least until I got over being mad at my mother for not allowing us to stay with them. Which didn't take more than a few weeks. I loved Mom too much to stay mad at her.

One Saturday night in February, Steve Bennett joined our group at Bremen Cafe. I knew Steve vaguely from work...knew who he was, at least. After that, he often joined us and we became friends. Over the weeks and months that friendship grew. When I realized that I was falling in love with him, I finally filed for the divorce that I had hoped I wouldn't have to get.

Steve was wonderful. To me. To the kids. To my family. He had an eight year-old daughter from his previous marriage that I adored. Lori was a shy, quiet little thing. It was hard to get her to say a word...until she got with my kids. Then she opened right up. She and Tammy became fast friends. And Joey followed her around like a little puppy. Because Steve was paying child support and bills he owed, he didn't have much money, so our dates were dutch treats...which was okay with me. I just liked being with him. We laughed a lot...and after what I had gone through the past year or two, I needed to laugh. He played on a softball team and I went to all his games. On Saturday nights we went to auto races. A neighbor of mine drove a race car, and we followed him and cheered him on all summer.

One night while at the race track, I heard my name over the loud speaker saying I had an emergency phone call. Well.....Buddy was spending the weekend with a friend over by Warsaw and had an accident riding a motor bike. The boy's parents took him to the Emergency Room at Warsaw Hospital and since he didn't know how to get hold of me, he had them call Mom and Dad.

But the hospital wouldn't stitch him up without my sayso, so they called the track and had me paged. Steve and I rushed to the hospital, scared to death not knowing how badly Buddy was hurt. Turned out, he had a long gash in his leg that had to be stitched, but was fine otherwise.

Another time I got a call at work that Buddy was at Bremen Hospital. Again, I rushed there scared about what I'd find. That time Tammy and Buddy were chasing each other and Tammy ran out the front door, slamming it in Buddy's face and he put his arm through the glass. He had several stitches in it.

I had a wonderful baby-sitter for Joey. She lived just a couple of blocks from us and loved Joey as much as he did her. She baby-sat for us for a couple of years. But that first summer, she got sick and her oldest teenage daughter took over for a few weeks. I thought it was perfect...Alice came to the house and stayed every day. Then, one night Joey and Buddy were wrestling around on the living room floor and Joey yelled, "Let go, you f...ker!" I was so shocked, I grabbed Joey and said, "what did you say? what did you call your brother?" "he's a f...er," Joey said.

I had no idea where he could have heard that word. I knew neither I nor anybody in my family ever said it. So, I questioned him carefully...and he finally said that was what Alice called him.

I immediately went over to Alice's and talked to her mother. I said I would not have that kind of language used around my kids. The upshot was the mother said she was feeling better and I could start bringing Joey back to her the next day. Unfortunately, Joey was only two years old and liked the word and the reaction it caused. (Tammy and Buddy thought it was funny and would crack up when he said it.) He continued to use it until one day I washed his mouth out with soap...that was the end of that!

In September, Steve asked me to marry him and I said yes. We planned a small December wedding. In the meantime, we went house-hunting. I found a nice story and a half farm house near Wakarusa with 3 acres of tillable land. The house need some work...painting, carpeting and the upstairs bedrooms were unfinished. Steve wanted a new house. That was our first argument...and Steve won out.

A new subdivision was going up on the edge of Bremen. We made an offer on a new house to be built...and were accepted. We pored over house plans trying to decide the type house we wanted. It was an exciting time for all of us. We got the kids involved in it and they each argued their case for the house they wanted. Finally, we all agreed on a tri-level with a two car garage...and were told the construction would begin just after the first of the year, on the lot we picked out.

Our wedding was to be quite simple. At Mom's church by her minister, Chad..and just us, the kids and our best friends, Evelyn and Jerry as attendants, and my family.

Then...the day before the wedding, I got a call at work. My uncle Calvin had been in the VA hospital in Fort Wayne for a week...and this call said he was dying and I should go to Warsaw and take Mom and Dad up to Fort Wayne. I worked days and Steve worked afternoons. I was waiting for him when he got to work and told him what was going on. He took the day off and went with me to get Mom and Dad.

We were at the hospital all night. Uncle Calvin was pronounced dead at 6 a.m. Mom had called her pastor, Chad and he was there when Uncle Calvin died. At that time, Steve and I told Chad we'd postpone our wedding.

Later on, though, the family talked us into going ahead with it...Jan, Calvin's wife, said it was what Uncle Calvin would want. While Steve and I went home to get a few hours sleep, Mom called Chad and said the wedding was back on. When we got to the church that afternoon, Chad was in overalls, doing some repairs around the church. He quickly changed into a suit and married us. And the next day we went to Ypsilanti for Uncle Calvin's funeral and burial. It was quite an introduction into our family for Steve! He was so great about it all, my entire family...Mom, Dad, brothers and sister, aunts, uncles, cousins..and most of all Granny (who was in the hospital at the time with stomach problems)...fell in love with him. I was afraid he'd feel overwhelmed, but if he was, he sure didn't act like it. He seemed to like my family just as much as they did him. Steve was soon to be tested even further.

On New Year's Eve, at a party at a friends, as soon as Steve kissed me at midnight, Evelyn handed me my coat and purse and Steve rushed me out the door to my protests and questions. In the car he told me Mom had called about fifteen minutes before midnight and said Granny was going in for emergency surgery...and wanted us to drive her and Dad to Ypsi.

When we got there, Granny was intensive care. She had survived the operation but was still in critical condition. We stayed at the hospital until Sunday evening, when we had to leave so we could go to work the next day. Mom and Dad decided to go with us. Dad was still working and he, too, had to work the next day. We tried to get Mom to stay, but she insisted on going home with Dad.

We stayed in daily contact with the hospital and relatives and kept up on Granny's condition. It was a happy day when I was told they were moving her from Intensive Care. This meant she was getting better...I thought. Instead...at work again...I get a call she has passed away...just a few hours after leaving intensive care. Once again, Steve and I, with Mom and Dad,make the sorrowful journey to Ypsilanti for a funeral. Jimmy and Loretta followed us, with Tammy and Buddy. Joey and Lori Sue rode up with Pastor Chad and his wife. We all got a laugh when Chad walked into Uncle Darvin's house where we had all gathered in preparation to attend the viewing. Chad walked in and hugged me and said...loudly...I finally met the man who can out talk me...and he's only three years old! Joey started talking at eighteen months..and never stopped...I swear he even talked in his sleep! Again, Steve was wonderful to us all and wormed his way further into the hearts of all my relatives. But, we weren't finished with him yet.

Three months later, again, I get a call at work. My sister, Margaret's, little four year old girl has died. She was riding on a motorcycle with her father and they hit a truck. Sheila was killed instantly and Phil was in critical condition. This time my relatives made the trip from Michigan to Indiana. It was a sad, difficult time for all of us, especially my sister. Steve was our rock! I don't know how I would ever have gotten through those four months of personal losses without Steve and thanked God every day for him.

The rest of my family came to depend on Steve, too. If Jimmy needed help installing a chimney, he called Steve. If Mom and Dad wanted panelling hung, they called Steve. When my sister and her husband were redoing their house, they called Steve. When our friends needed help, they called Steve. Steve was always available whenever anybody needed him. And, over the years as other facets of him changed, that never did.

Steve was a wonderful father to my kids. It can't have been easy taking on two teen-agers and a three year old, but he did it with open arms. He was great with his own daughter, too. We had Lori with us every other weekend, a month in the summer, a week at Easter/spring break and a week at Christmas. She fit in with my kids like she'd always been a part of us. At first she was very shy around me. I figured it was because ...a. I married her dad...and maybe she had been dreaming that her parents would get back together...altho her mother had remarried, also. b. She was afraid of losing her time with her dad. I worked hard at making sure that didn't happen, encouraging Steve to spend time alone with Lori when she was with us. I talked to her early on and told her that I did not want to take her mother's place...she had a mother...but I hoped she and I could be friends. I grew to love her as much as I did my own kids and soon found myself just as eager as Steve to have her with us as often as possible. When it came to Christmas and birthdays, I made sure that Lori got just as much from us as my kids...after all, I did consider her partly mine.

My uncle Darvin and his wife, Shirley, divorced and started having trouble with their middle child, Mildred. Severe problems...drugs, running away, violence towards her mother. She was taken from them and put in the "system." One weekend when Steve and I were visiting Darvin and his new girlfriend, Darvin became visible upset when talking about Milly. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, Steve and I had volunteered to take her if the court would allow it. Well, the court did and Milly came to live with us. On the surface Milly was a sweet, congenial fourteen year-old who was a welcome addition to our family. All the kids loved her. We started her in school ...ninth grade...in Bremen. At first, all was fine. But after a few months, Milly got antsy...and ran away from us, hitchhiked to Ypsilanti and her dad. Darvin brought her back, but she didn't stay long. As hard as it was to give her up...or to give up on her...we had to. She was put in a foster home in Ann Arbor where she lived until she was 18. She has told me that the love we showed her and then she lost by her own actions, made her determined to change...and she did. Today, Milly is a social worker working with troubled teenagers such as she was.

Steve and I also opened our home and hearts to some inner city kids from Chicago. Every summer we took in at least one child for two weeks...sometimes we'd put one on the bus to go home and pick up another one for two weeks. Sometimes we took two siblings at a time. We always tried to get a boy near Joey's age. Over the years there were a couple boys we got every summer that we all grew close to.

Michael and Paul. How I loved those boys! We always made sure we did something special while the kids were with us. One year we took one flying..a friend of ours had a small plane. We took them to Kings Island amusement park. We took one on vacation with us. We took them camping. But one year, when we had Michael, I think it was, we went to Chicago to the museums. We had planned to go to the zoo, but it rained all day and we ended up at the museum. Michael was a good sport about it, though, saying even though he had been to the museum...not with us!

The summer Joey was 12 was the last year we took a Chicago kid. That year we had Michael and took him on vacation with us. And Joey and Michael squabbled the whole two weeks. Even Lori was ready to send Michael home on more than one occasion. The kids had just outgrown each other and were growing in different directions. After that both Joey and Lori asked us not to take any more summer kids.